A report issued by the United Nations, on Thursday, revealed that rebuilding homes in the Gaza Strip could continue into the next century if the pace of reconstruction follows the same trend as in previous attacks.

The Israeli bombing, which has continued for nearly seven months, has caused billions of dollars in losses and turned many high-rise concrete buildings in the densely populated Strip into piles of rubble, with a United Nations official noting that the destruction has made the Gaza Strip “like the surface of the moon.”

Palestinian data says that about 80,000 homes have been destroyed in the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip since October 7th.

The Israeli strikes resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Decades of continuous suffering

The assessment, issued by the United Nations Development Programme, stated that Gaza would need “nearly 80 years to fully restore all destroyed housing units.”

But the report said that in the best possible scenario, where construction materials are delivered five times faster than in the previous war in 2021, this would enable reconstruction by 2040.

The UNDP assessment makes a series of projections on the social and economic impact of war based on the duration of the current conflict, anticipating decades of continued suffering.

UNDP Director Achim Steiner said in a statement that “the unprecedented rates of human loss, massive destruction and a sharp increase in poverty in such a short period will lead to a serious development crisis that threatens the future of future generations.”

The cost of reconstruction is high

The report indicated that if the war continues for nine months, poverty among the population of Gaza is expected to increase from 38.8% at the end of 2023 to 60.7%, which will drag a large portion of the middle class below the poverty line.

The United Nations also announced that it estimates the cost of rebuilding the Gaza Strip at between 30 and 40 billion dollars as a result of the massive and unprecedented scale of destruction after seven months of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Abdullah Al-Dardari, said in a joint press conference in Amman with the Director of the Regional Office for Arab States at the United Nations Development Programme: “The United Nations Development Programme’s initial estimates for rebuilding everything that was destroyed in the Gaza Strip exceed $30 billion and even reach... $40 billion,” adding: “It is a task that the international community has not dealt with since World War II.”